''Norwegian is easy! You will learn it within a year!''
That was what a friend of mine said when I enrolled to the beginners class.
Well, I was not so optimistic but who would have known that after five years, I would still struggle so much!
I decided to express my experience (and frustration) on learning norwegian in Trondheim in a series of entries. Which I hope will be informative to people who are in the path of mastering it.
In Trondheim you basically had two private schools Folkeuniversitet and Brilla, paid group lessons in Trondheim kommune and one at the university for which admission is limited but the lessons are free of charge. Goody!! There is also a brand new language school too.
Here are the links:
http://www.folkeuniversitetet.no/sprakkurs/norskkurs/kat-id-421/
http://www.brilla.no/
https://www.trondheim.kommune.no/content/1117725482/Norskkurs
https://www.ntnu.no/norskkurs/opptak
http://www.studynorwegian.com/home.html
And here is a summary of my troubled journey:
Folkeuniversitet is like a roulette. Are you generally lucky? Go for it!
You pay in advance, a ridiculous amount of money for group lessons, and your learning depends on the mood of the teacher. I sincerely believe they have no control over what happens in the class and even worst, they don't even bother to have a certain policy.
When I started I had a very nice teacher. She was prepared, doing a decent lesson and our learning curve progressed well. In a beginners course you don't expect to achieve fluency so I was happy for both hers and my performance. All good!
It's only that at the last lesson we gathered for a little social last hour with the other group of the second beginners class. Oh dear god!! They could speak with ease!! Their teacher had a very different approach and so very clearly a far more effective one! I had a fair teacher, but it was more than evident that the school had no teaching policy other than suggesting which books to use. Still my experience was a good one.
Then last fall I attended B2 level there, and I had one of the worst experiences of language courses ever. The teacher, although, well educated was unable to organize a proper lesson. The only thing she was able to do is to sing youtube videos basically alone as it was very difficult for us to follow, consuming a lot of our very expensive time, by showing us NRK tv (clearly that was her idea of introducing us aspects of norwegian society), and answering alone her own questions. To her credit, she provided us with a lot of webpages with free material for home study. However, she corrected max 2 essays of a curriculum of 5-6 and she wouldn't give a fuck about the fact (I totally believe she didn't even realize as she was not in real contact with the class) that the most shy student hadn't spoken aloud not even once. Well, he did once, when a substitute hold the class.
So this 'star' of a teacher holds the most important course of all, the preparation course for the dreadful Bergenstest!! Kudos Folkeuniversitet! I would really like to know the performance statistics of the test in June for example but, of course, they don't release them in their webpage. Seems they don't care to convince you to attend their courses! I suppose they know that most people will choose to go anyway as the offer is limited. Who cares to prove that you'll get quality services.
At some point I also tried my luck with the other private school, Brilla. Well, not much luck there either. They cancelled the course just ONE working day before the beginning of it (on Wednesday before Easter and the course was to start on Tuesday after Easter), without offering an alternative and withholding the full course deposit for one more week. Not the best impression I could get, but I have no clue of how the perform the classes.
This semester I will try my luck with the lessons at the municipality, who knows, I might be luckier this time.
My journey in language learning started when I was nine years old. That was a private local language school, which accepted mostly teachers that had english as mother tongue but came from different parts of the world. I couldn't appreciate fully this experience as a kid but now I certainly do. At some point, I started learning french at school as well. Then at the university I continued with english at C2 level and I tried to learn german too.(Ok, I won't count ancient greek here, but still...). So I would say I have had something like twenty plus language teachers, some I loved them and still miss them, some were decent but indifferent and only two were horrible. We know who is the one...
Anyway, what make a teacher horrible are two qualities; indifference or else operational mode and the belief that the student is the only responsible for the outcome. That, however, stands only in the case of a self study. Then, yes, the student takes all the credit and I can't say how very much I admire those people! Unfortunately, the rest of us need a teacher, we need guidance and inspiration. An excellent teacher provides both, a fair one only guidance and a bad one none.
I'll continue with Part II soon. It will be my experience of self study. Internet resources with free material and language cafes in Trondheim. Stay tuned! :D
